Open Question: Install Linux without Live Media?

I wrote a couple posts back that one of my motivations for completing Fresh OS (which is very close to completion but won't be complete until the weekend probably due to my schoolwork) is so that I can install it on a friend's laptop as that friend expressed an interest in running Linux. Well, that thought is right now at the back of my mind. The DVD drive doesn't work (it's partially broken, actually), and she has told me already that live USBs don't work (as she has tried before). I tried using Wubi, but unfortunately some issues with Microsoft Windows XP regarding executables on that computer won't allow Wubi to run. So I phrase this as an open question: is there any way for me to easily install Linux on this laptop (1.5 GHz single-core processor, 512 MB of RAM) without any live media? I've seen some online solutions about downloading and extracting ISOs, but that's a little too time-consuming. Also, the reason why I'm not dead-set on this is because this is not the primary computer anyway (in fact, it almost never gets used except in emergency situations as the primary computer is now a MacBook). So, what do you say about this?